Feel­ing blue?

What’s with all the blue neck­ties (par­tic­u­larly a cer­tain shade of baby blue) ap­pear­ing in Wash­ing­ton of late, in­clud­ing at the White House — and dur­ing Christ­mas sea­son, no less?

Even the Dec. 5 White House pool re­port ob­served that for his early-morn­ing meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Bush, De­fense Sec­re­tary­des­ig­nate Robert M. Gates “got the cloth­ing memo — both men showed up in dark pin­stripe suits, white shirts and blue ties.”